I try not to get into this type of rant, but today I just can’t help it. There’s been some issues here in Victoria about the camping in parks bylaw. I read an article in todays paper and it said the original bylaw stated they could pitch their tents between 9pm and 7am. It was then ammended to 7pm to 7am. Now when they first did it I remember seeing the news. A ton of people pitched tents in Beacon Hill Park, then the next morning refused to take them down, lead by a local homeless activist. After a lot of warnings, the police finally moved in at 2pm. I found it to be rediculous, partly because there were open beds people could have slept in, and partly because before they weren’t allowed so why would they have a problem with having that spot for the night then move back to their normal day spots? Apparently, according to the paper, there was a loophole that let people off on their violation of the daytime anti-camping bylaw (I may be confusing some things, I rarely read anything about law stuff but that was my understanding). Now they’ve reinstated the only camping from 7pm to 7am, which to me makes the most sense, although I would have said 9pm.

Now what set all of this off was seeing two guys sitting under a shelter made of cardboard in the middle of the lawn under the tree beside city hall. I believe it’s the same guys who did it the first time (one because the activist) but I can’t be totally sure. Apparently it counts as a park or something. They were there on the day of the lighting of the christmas tree and I believe had to be forcibly removed. I don’t see how he thinks that actually helped his case. Annoying people, making people angry, does not win you their sympathy. The sad thing is there are some people that quite obviously are just sitting out doing nothing instead of working. If you want to be out there, fine, just don’t beg me for money you didn’t earn.

Now I do realize there are some people out there who really do need help. They closed down the local mental institutes a while back and those people had nowhere to go. I find it very sad that these people are suffering in part because so many others are in the streets (and I truely believe that they are being ignored because people here are just fed up with all the homeless people that have been coming here from all over the country, because of the weather, to lay around our streets and not work for their money). It’s hard to have sympathy when you know a good chunk of the people out there are on the streets because they choose to be, and some of them for some reason really do choose to be. How do we figure out which ones really do need help? There are many ideas here for how to find more beds, more 7 day shelters, more ways to help. I’m not sure if any of them are actually being worked out or not.

One story from a while ago, someone wanted to buy some farmland and make a home and work place for the homeless. It sounded like a great idea! They could work on the land and have a place to stay. It didn’t go through because the people who lived around it didn’t want them there. That to me is a little bit pathetic. It’s one thing to not want them begging in your streets, but to not want them working?

I just had to get that out of my system.